


The Results of Good Team Work in an Imperfect World

by navaan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Sex, Multi, POV Female Character, Polyamory, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 07:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13336764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Natasha recognizes competence. She recognizes feeling drawn to it. And if something clicks you don't fight it.





	The Results of Good Team Work in an Imperfect World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Impala_Chick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impala_Chick/gifts).



Natasha had a thing for competent partners. 

It came with the territory of always watching your back, of always working at peak efficiency. It had been drilled into her since the very beginning: Exploit weaknesses, because everyone has them; recognize strength, because that’s what will kill you; always be at you best because one mistake might be your last one. Of course, there had been no lessons about partnership and family in the Red Room, because everyone was an enemy, even when they were standing right next you. Back then the mission was all that counted and your loyalty was bound to Russia - not your compatriots. There were no friends, no partners, no lovers that could ever be allowed the chance to last at your side. There was no room for feelings, for true connection, for warmth, for anything that might stand in the way of the next kill.

Since then the Black Widow had chosen a different path.

One that had started with a SHIELD agent showing her that she didn’t have to live by the choices that had been made for her. Hawkeye had shown her that the doubts in herself were reasonable. There _was_ a different world for her, one were she could make up for what she'd been made to do.

Since then she had learned and rediscovered the importance of warmth, of compassion, of friendship, family and partners.

None of it had changed her need for excellence.

And when she chose a partner now it was because they knew who she was, what she wanted, what she could do and had done - and because they could impress her.  
There was nothing more sexy to her than excellence - inside and outside the bedroom.

So, really, Natasha wasn’t at all surprised when she found herself drawn into a well working team of people, who knew how to play to their own strengths. She wasn’t at all surprised either to find herself on a battlefield with Captain America and Iron Man - Stark busy protecting her and Cap from incoming bullets with repulsor shielding and a barrage of blast that made the air buzz, and Rogers busy taking out a tank with nothing but shield in hand - focused on her own task, but _taking_ notice of the way all three of them worked in perfect sync with each other without any directions being given.

“On your right, Cap. They're trying to blow you back to the 40s,” Stark warned, and wasn’t that _always_ the revelation how Tony could become focused and serious when battle raged around him, but without losing his capacity for banter.

“Saw it,” Steve said calmly.

“Widow,” Tony warned next - and there wasn’t more he needed to say, when a jeep came speeding into their general direction at the same time as a missile came too close to their position. Iron Man would focus on one and she on the other, while Steve dealt the tank the final blow. Even splitting up - each to do their part - they worked like a well oiled machine.

There was no time for it then, but watching it later on recorded surveillance footage that Steve insisted they all use for battle analysis and training, made her go weak in the knees. This was amazing. This was _sexy_.

She pondered her own reaction, analyzed it, recognized it for what it was - and was ready to discard it. Nothing was more important than keeping the team together. Giving in to her own selfish attraction, wouldn’t serve the Avengers. And it was unlikely that she would get what she wanted from either of these men, let alone from both.

Especially not when the two men - and she shortly looked around the room to make sure there were only two candidates she was seriously considering - she thought might make an adequate challenge, or partners, or lovers - she wasn’t sure which - were currently bristling at each other. They’d been a perfect team out there, fighting Hydra, but now here in one room, where Tony had suspiciously until very recently always deferred to Steve, they were posturing and antagonizing each other.

Elevating that tension wouldn’t serve anyone.

Well, not even the good girls could have everything.

* * *

The seed was planted though and she couldn’t help noticing how well she worked at the side of both Captain America and Iron Man. They were all at their most excellent when they relied on each other. It went for her and Steve, for her and Tony - and although this might be the most surprising with the antagonistic tension that ebbed and flowed between them - for Steve and Tony, too.

She watched that two and didn’t stop herself from wondering anymore.

Who to court? Who to let in? Who to better leave alone? 

Who could give her what she craved more than the other?

She had kissed Steve not long ago, when they’d been on the run and she had still been playfully meddling in his non-existent love life. It had been a tiny spark that had no time to light into a fire then, but she knew there was at least a bit of an answering attraction there.

And Tony?

She never had any doubt that Tony found her attractive, but she wasn’t sure how deep it went, how true it was, how good her chances were to get past his distrust of her. And she had never kissed him. Not in her false guise as Natalie, and not as Natasha either. She hadn't wanted to even do it as a playful joke - not as long as he’d been set on making things work with Pepper. 

But that was over.

Because there was only one way to know, she took a chance. While Tony explained the new wrist devices he had made for her, eyes shining with the knowledge of his own brilliance, she leaned forward and kissed him - not a thank you kiss, not a peck on the lips. She made it a full blown kiss and for once and - mid explanation and excitement - Tony Stark was too slow to even see her coming. That was a win onto itself.

But better.

He kissed back and she was the one to end it. His pupils were blown wide with undisguised need, but he cleared his throat and she could see his guards come up.

Warily he watched her, as she sat back and for the moment they were only studying each other. 

“You’re no longer with Pepper,” she said as if that explained anything. And at least it was the most honest explanation she had why now she was making a move, when she’d had years to do it. But she had never really wanted to get in between Tony and the relationship he was trying to make work so hard. Even when they’d first met - when he’d been trying to sabotage his relationships to push people away, Natasha had realized that there was no coming between them then. But now he was moving on.

“No,” he said.

“Then…” 

“No,” he repeated. “I meant no.” He gestured between them. “This isn’t going to work.”

He got to his feet to leave, but Natasha had calculated better, and at the moment when Tony was ready to get away from this and run, she knew she had perfectly timed it.

“What is this?” Steve asked from the door and he sounded cold and pissed.

Tony shot back: “None of your damn business, Cap.”

Then he ran.

Natasha smirked, even though Steve’s gaze darkened. 

Things _were_ falling into place. Easier and much smoother than expected.

At least the tension that bristled between the two men made sense to her now. How had she not seen it before. They were dancing around each other just as much as they were dancing around her.

Steve’s darkened gaze fell on her and hovered there in that strange place between annoyance and anger, but then his guards flew up, too, and he watched her with a neutral expression. “I know you and Tony are working well together…” 

“So are we,” she interrupted and took whatever polite wind he’d had out of his sails before he could hide behind his patented Steve Rogers neutrality. 

“That’s not…”

“Yes,” she said, “that is exactly what you wanted to say, Steve. And you’re right. But you heard him. He’s not interested. Not the way it is right now.”

“I didn’t…” He grew flustered for just a second, always seeming so much younger when he was forced to deal with anyone’s emotions. “He and Pepper just broke up. But he… likes…”

“You do realize,” she said, and kept her tone conversationally and warm, “that Pepper is less of reason for his panicked flight than the fact the he also wants to fuck you.”

It was gratifying to see Steve’s face struggle through a wide range of emotion - confusion, anger, surprise, annoyance, _interest_ \- until it settled onto a slightly chastising one and said: “ _Natasha_.” Like she was a teenager stepping over a line.

“And you see,” she picked up right where she had left of and walked the few paces over to him. “I think that’s no problem at all.” She leaned up to kiss him, waited for the moment when he caught up with it and melted into it, probably against his better judgment.

He kissed her back carefully and sweetly and she smiled into the kiss, because she already knew if her own plans worked out, she and Tony would get him to finally let go of the gentle politeness to show them what was really just simmering under the surface. Tony would get him to bristle, and Natasha would get him to _want_ this.

“What the hell!?”

When someone called out from the door, Steve pulled away from her, startled. She just smirked without turning.

Tony had come back - maybe to ask questions, maybe to talk this out, maybe to just ignore it ever happened and go back to being their trusted sponsor and engineer. She couldn't tell. 

And just like that they were one step closer to being on the same page. Although not just yet, as Steve and Tony were staring at each other with the same amount of tension they always displayed when they weren’t sure if they were arguing or not. Tony looked angry now, and she could imagine the many ways his mind was looking at this and coming up with the word “betrayal”. And Steve was clearing his throat, ready to say something that would serve to make it worse while trying to do the opposite.

But this wasn’t going to do.

Natasha grinned. “As you are finally busy looking into each other’s beautiful eyes again, maybe you can do that and for once admit to each other, that you’d be better together. That we would all be better together. You can kiss now. I'll be more than happy to watch.”

Two sets of eyes turned to her, and she smiled, not surprised that the hard part for the two of them would be to open themselves up to being hurt by someone who had power over them, whose respect they wanted and never quite seemed to hold in the way they wanted. It was the hard part for her too, but she was willing to go a long way in the pursuit of the competent partners she wanted for herself.

The men stared at each other warily and she was delighted, when it was Steve who made the first move, startling Tony into making a step back, when he grabbed him by the jaw to tilt his head up for a kiss.

She watched as they fell into it, a bit too angry, fighting for dominance, and yet not. It made her cheeks warm and her stomach flutter with exactly the right kind of excitement She wondered how Steve would look under her, how Tony would look between them - if they'd be willing to let her take charge. She already saw so much potential for pleasure there.

When they pulled apart none of the tension had gone. They were still warily watching each other, and then her eyes turned back to her.

She smiled. 

Yes, she was going to have to help them along until they knew how they fit together. She licked her lips to let them know how excited their little display had made her.

* * *

Later, when she’d made them scream at each other, fight it out, when she’d smirked at them and lured them to bed, when kisses had led to touching and stroking and gasps and moans, later when she was sandwiched between them, satisfied and sore, Steve holding both of them in his embrace, she knew that once again she’d found what she was always striving for.

Competent partners.


End file.
